A burn at the ending sheet
by achildofthestars
Summary: Clark/Lois. Spoilers: Doomsday. An outcast, she remembers him telling her once.


_Title: A burn at the ending sheet_

_Disclaimer: Don't own.  
_

_A/N: Of course, thanks ahead of time and I hope you enjoy this piece._

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A bead of sweat pours from the back of her neck, gently falling under a stray strand of her dark hair and disappearing under the white of her tank top. She finds it hard to check the phone tucked into her bag, shoved into the sand by her feet, and instead forces a red plastic fork into her mouth.

The water of the lake is calm, dark under a retreating burnt orange sun and a boisterous purple sky. The air is still, bordering on the edge of stifling, bearable only because the nearness of the water. She stills her body as brush moves, somewhere to her right where the bushes are growing wildly. Instead of it being him, it's a bird, brown and short winged.

Her teeth chew on the plastic, brought mistakenly for the sweating pudding untouched in her bag. Turning her head back toward the lake, she counts the rings of bruised clouds swinging around the disappearing sun. She nearly finds it funny when she's finished, that they mirror the number of times she's met him like this – under cloak and dagger.

Seven. Her knees draw up slightly and she lets her toes dig into the warm tan sand. Counting tonight, it's seven secret encounters. As her eyes slip closed, she recalls them in quick succession.

The first was a night during her hospital stay. He'd walked in softly, every movement of his body weighed down by something, his eyes dark under her stare. She'd asked him every question under the sun and Clark had sat in the chair beside her bed without saying one word until she was nearly asleep. 'I'm sorry.'

The second fell on a Thursday. She'd been frustrated. Three months had passed without her and the catch up was showing its tension in her body. A coffee and doughnut were in his hands then, along with a long glance to the spot his body once occupied so fully. She means to ask him more, but his body has already walked away.

The third happened darkly. The life inside Chloe started fading, and she, Lois Lane, had no words. When the doctor had told them nothing could be done, she'd held her crying cousin, trying to forget two hands wrapped so tightly around a plump abdomen. She'd yelled at him that night, expecting more than single syllables this time, and received nothing but silence.

The fourth was the beginning, she sees now. He'd been sitting at her table, quiet as usual, staring at the article about Metropolis' hero. It was the night the first question was asked, and it wasn't about her, or Chloe, or the farm. 'Will Metropolis always need him?' Before she could answer, he'd shaken his head and was leaving her alone again.

The fifth birthed the first touch of him. Standing in her doorway, she'd sworn all that was holding him up was the wood of the building. His hair had been wet with water, shirt partly soaked in patches. A sound escaped his throat and froze her tongue, and there they stood as his eyes burned into her. Before turning away he'd whispered his fingers along her shoulder.

The sixth came on a night of revelation. The Red-Blue-Blur spoke through the phone, and she'd smiled at his words. 'Turn around.' The smile of surprise had been plastered on her lips as she twisted, and then there'd been Clark. As the shock registers his hand gives her a letter, meaning to be a substitute for his disappearing presence.

A wind dances across her cheek and she tenses. From behind her, she can hear his steps on the sand, moving closer to her and grinding heavily on the earth. When the sound stops she waits for him to make up his mind – fight or flight.

"You came," she says around her fork.

There's silence, much like always, and she thinks perhaps this is too far for him to come. Maybe she's asking too much and doesn't realize it. And then he moves, slowly and careful though. He's towering over her and for just a second, her head tilted up until her neck could easily snap, she wonders at the incredible control he must hold over his very being to feign the appearance of normalcy. A breath escapes his lips before he sits down beside her, sure to keep space between them.

His head swivels and his eyes glance to the red stem between her lips. "I shouldn't have told you."

Only a few things have ever hurt her, truly and deeply, and this is one of those. It sears madly, and even as she shakes it off, she knows the pain will always be a phantom.

"Of course not," her lips build.

His head shakes and the dark strands of his hair wave. "It's too dangerous."

"Then why tell me?"

She watches as his palm flattens on the sand, scant inches from her thigh, and she hears his head face forward, eyes probably watching the waveless waters. She waits, and when she doesn't hear his lips begin to part she grips the long stem of the fork in her mouth and slides it between the front two rows of her teeth, biting down until her muscles are sore.

When the sun is nothing but a sliver of orange and the moon's glow becomes more prominent, she thinks about telling him to leave her be. She's had enough of heroes, especially ones that don't want her.

"I'm not human."

Her head turns to him, startled at the softness of his words in the night. This time his face is lined with a frown.

His head lifts to the sky and he says, "I don't belong here."

An outcast, she remembers him telling her once. Her eyes fall. He's an alien, different in every possible way from her, from everyone, and yet he's the single most human person she's ever met. She slips the fork from her mouth and lets it drop to the ground. His face drops and finds hers immediately.

"Clark," she feels her weak smile trying to find her words, but she can't explain it to him with simple words. How does she tell him how great he is? What can she say that could possibly matter to him? In her failure she drops her gaze, unintentionally focusing on his fallen hand. Before her courage fails her, she lays a hand on top of his.

His flesh is warm and suddenly taut, a jerk of his muscles rippling even through her because she has passed the boundary, she has crossed the line he'd made. Her fingers slide through the spaces between his and she presses her palm gently on the back of his hand. When she became sure he was the one, she doesn't know, and even if he doesn't feel the same way about her, he must feel something. To keep coming back.

"Lois." It's the first time he's said her name and they both close their eyes when the word is uttered. "I'm not _human_."

"You may not be human," she hears herself saying, "but you belong here."

She watches his face, can sense his want to believe her and feel his resistance as strong as ever. The blue of his eyes travels along her face, finally lowering to their hands combed together, something like bewilderment showering across his features when he finds her gaze again.

"You belong _here_," she confirms.

Long scores pass before his body moves, his hand twitching under hers and turning over so his palm kisses hers. Their fingers link loosely, and for the rest of the night, neither let go.


End file.
